


Seeing double

by CMDAK



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), London Spy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 15:47:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6057214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CMDAK/pseuds/CMDAK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond's expectations have a very bad habit of not being met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeing double

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tsuyu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsuyu/gifts).



> You can all blame Rasa's dream for this.

Bond did not expect much when he returned from a mission. He expected R to roll her eyes when he did not have any equipment to return in one piece, he expected his apartment to be sold, not as a sign of little faith in his abilities as an a gent and as an apparent phoenix bird, but as punishment, and he expected to receive a serious scolding from his beloved Quartermaster and lover, Q. The latter implies that he expected to find Q alive and well when he set foot in the MI6 headquarters. He expected to find him munching on a doughnut, mouth covered in cream and sugar which he would lick clean mid-rant and then get hit over the head with the thickest folder he had on his desk. Maybe even his laptop, if James had annoyed him enough.

 

Apparently, he was expecting for too much. “Everyone tried their best, James,” Eve was saying or he thought she was saying because every noise he heard came like an echo to him and the world had suddenly lost its stability and colour. “No one managed to get out of there alive.” This all had to be a nightmare. “His funeral is tomorrow and James,” she took his hand and put Q’s cracked glasses in it, tears running down her face.

 

He attended the one funeral he never wanted to attend, watched the coffin of the one person he never wanted to see in one get lowered in the ground, said the words he never wanted to speak. The junior agents offered their condolences, the seasoned ones squeezed his shoulders and offered their help, and Q’s loyal minions hugged him, crying the tears he could not spill for him.

 

They all went to Q’s wake afterwards, but James couldn’t leave his lover alone. So he sat next to the freshly covered grave, placed the cracked glasses on top if it and started to empty the bottle of alcohol that they usually drank together to celebrate another completed mission that did not end in the agent’s death.

 

“People that still have spots are not supposed to go to sleep before those who have white hair,” he slurred, lying on his side over the grave. “You must be cold down there, love. They didn’t let me put a blanket over you, but don’t you worry. If you start sneezing and coughing, I’ll lock all of them up in refrigerators and see how they like it.”

 

He sat there until the sun set and left when he was asked, returning at dawn the following day. And the day after and so on and so forth until a month passed and he found M and R and Eve and Tanner waiting for him at the gates of the cemetery, all of them looking worried and tired.

 

“You won’t find Q in a talkative mood today. Then again, he hasn’t been saying anything to anyone these days.”

 

He tried to get passed them, but Eve grabbed his arm and kept him in place. “James, this isn’t healthy. Please come to MI6 with us and let a doctor look you over.”

 

“I would, but Q is—”

 

“Dead,” Tanner interrupted him. “He is dead and buried and probably rolling in his grave at the knowledge of you wasting your life like this.” He grabbed him and shook him, forcing him to look at him. “You have to keep living for the both of you, James. You can’t just give up.”

 

“I am not giving up,” he hissed, pushing Tanner away. “I am keeping him company because you all _abandoned_ him. You know he forgets to eat and sleep if he is left to his own devices!”

 

He was more than aware of what he was saying and of how crazy he sounded, but pretending made it bearable. If he pretended that Q was just _asleep_ and not dead, he could carry on with his life in this fucked up and sick manner until the cracks in heart finally killed him and he could join his young love.

 

“Bond, if you carry on like this, then I am afraid that I cannot give you this unofficial mission,” M said slowly, hands clasped behind his back and looking as heartless as ever.

 

“I am not interested—”

 

“We have a list of everyone who was involved in Q’s death.”

 

The air left his lungs and he turned sharply to glare at Eve, checking her face to see if she was desperate enough to lie about something as sacred as this. She wasn’t. “007 reporting for duty, sir.”

 

***

 

This trip all over the world would have been enjoyed even more if Q was by his side at least with his voice. And not just in his mind, the posh voice scolding him every time he almost got himself killed and almost got an innocent bystander hurt. Actually, scratch that. He would have enjoyed this trip if it the one he had promised Q once he retired.

 

But this morbid mission that was one hyperactive soundtrack away from being a blockbuster still gave him energy to carry on, fuel to live to die another day and hopefully, not before he avenged the light of his eyes.

 

“ _This is the last one, James_ ,” R – Quartermaster now, but never referred by that letter by anyone at her own request – whispered carefully in his ear. “ _This man is the man who led the raid against the safe house from which Q was providing the agent with technical support_.”

 

As far as James was concerned, this man, just like all the other ones, had been the one who put a bullet through Q’s head after beating him within an inch of his life. “I’ll try to see if I can keep him alive for more than an hour this time.”

 

“ _Please do,_ ” the woman breathed out. “ _I am not quite sure our information is right and I want to check every little word he says, whimpers, or scream against what we have. Just to be sure.”_

 

James grinned, licking his lips. The petite woman’s bloodthirstiness didn’t quite come as a surprise to him, the woman loving Q much like a sister would have. “Darling little flower, Q would be extremely proud of how diligent you are.”

 

“ _More like he would scold me for allowing you to get hurt in Morocco._ ”

 

He gently touched his chest, right above his heart, flinching. “Accidents happen, R, don’t worry about it. Now, you said that—”

 

A ghost bumped into him. “Oh, sorry about that,” the ghost said without a hint of that posh voice that drove him mad, green eyes that he easily got lost into even when they behind the stylish glasses that now lied cracked in the pocket of his jacket looking up at him without a hint or recognition or love.

 

“Danny?” Someone called from behind him and the ghost’s face light up like it was a Las Vegas sign.

 

“Coming, Alex. Sorry I bumped into you,” his beloved and living Q called over his shoulder, running at full speed in the waiting arms of another man, cupping his face and rubbing their noses together before giving him a deep kiss and walking away.

 

“ _James? 007, do you read me? Were you discovered? Was it an ambush? Bond?”_ R was asking in his earwig, worry clear in her voice.

 

“R, I’m going to postpone this mission,” he said, throat dry. “I need to check something, but I’ll contact you soon.” He turned off the earwig before she could say anything and proceeded to follow the spectre and his companion.

 

At first, he had thought that he had been imagining things, but the man was the right size, the hair was the right colour and looked to be as soft as Q’s even thought it was shorter and finally tamed and he was pretty sure that the only reason the eyes were a tad darker shade of green was because of contact lenses. His taste in clothes was still as interesting as ever, although he did not stand out in the crowd and he had proven more than once that he was capable of hiding his accent without trying.

 

Had Q gotten tired of him? He might have gotten tired of him. It couldn’t be because of honeypot missions because James had forced M to take him of that roster the second he and the Quartermaster became an item. But if that was the case, why had he gone through all of this? Why not just tell him? Why make everyone think he was dead? Why make him go through his funeral? Or was everyone in MI6 in on this? No, that couldn’t be it. They let him _torment_ and _kill_ people.

 

Maybe Q was… No, Vesper had been that and not quite. Q was different. Q trusted him with everything. Q put him first before anything and everything, even when he wasn’t supposed to.

 

Lost in thought and tormented by horrible possibilities, following the bright yellow t-shirt by instinct, he didn’t realize that he had walked down a dark alley until someone grabbed his shoulder and turned him around roughly, pushing him up against a brick wall.

 

“Who are you and why are you following us?” The man demanded, his eyes filling with recognition at the same time as James’, needing a moment too much to get his bearings back and ending up with a fist right in that perfectly sculpted nose of his.

 

James jumped to the side and brought his arms in front of himself, dodging a punch and landing one in the other agent’s stomach and another one in the side of his face, dropping low and punching the man’s knees. He didn’t lose any time in throwing himself over him and starting to smash his head against the ground, stopping not because the man had lost his consciousness, but because Q had hit him with a garbage lid over his head.

 

“Get off of him right now,” Q hissed at him, hitting him again. “Get off and leave us alone.”

 

When he went to hit him for a third time, James easily grabbed the lid and tossed it away, pushing himself forward, trapping one of Q’s arms behind his back and twisting the other one above his head. “Sorry about this, love,” he breathed out, almost repulsed by the new aftershave that Q was using.

 

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Q whimpered and James quickly changed their position, simply pushing him against his chest, hugging him tightly.

 

His skin was rougher, his shampoo new. “Q, love, why did you do this to me? Or what did I do this to you to make you play dead so you could run away with a very alive **_009_**?” He had always treated the other agent differently from the others and he had always given him almost the best equipment he had, but James thought that was because Q was trying to make him jealous and teach him a lesson, not because he was having an affair with him.

 

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Q insisted and tried to headbutt him or move his arms enough to dig his nails in his stomach or thigh. “Why do you keep calling me Q? And who is 009? On what drugs are you, because I took a lot in my lifetime and none of them made me react like this.”

 

James pulled back a little and tried to kiss him, so sure that their lips touching would bring this whole farce to an end. But Q lost it when he realized what was about to happen and struggled so violently that he managed to free his hands. James never knew that the man could smack so hard that he drew blood or that he was such a good kicker.

 

But despite having freed himself, instead of doing the logical thing and running away while he gasped for air on his knees, Q went to 009’s side and carefully cradled his head in his lap, chocking back sobs as he tried to rouse him.

 

“If you killed him… If you killed Alex, I’ll kill you, you bastard,” he promised, trembling. “I lost him once and I refuse to lose him again.”

 

“Q—”

 

“I am not Q!” He hissed, grabbing a pebble and throwing it at James’ head. “My name is Danny!”

 

No, he refused to believe this. There was no way that two people who looked so much like each other could exist in the world without being twins. There was no way that the world and the gods and the fates and whatever other deities or higher beings of power that existed could be this cruel to him. This had to be Q; a different haircut, a different aftershave and shampoo, very good contact lenses, but still Q. And he could prove that very easily.

 

He ignored the pain and charged at Q, looking apologetically at him as he wrapped his hand around his neck. “Don’t make me squeeze, Q. It is going to kill me even more if I have to do it.”

 

“I am not—”

 

James covered his mouth, fingers around his throat twitching. “Q, please sit still. Your neck should only be adorned with love bites.” He waited for a moment to see if the man would struggle before slowly starting to unbutton his shirt, letting out a shaky breath when he heard Q whimper. “I am not going to hurt you,” he promised, feeling sick to his stomach that Q doubted his intentions and thought he would actually hurt him.

 

Milky white skin exposed, completely lack of any birthmarks that Q once had or any traces of surgery left James feel cold and empty. Where was that star-shaped mark that James had an obsession with and that he licked and kissed every time he was granted access to it? Why was the man that looked so much like Q, not Q? Why did the world hate him so?

 

“Who are you?” He breathed out, so full of rage that it was taking all of his strength not to squeeze the imposter’s neck. “How _dare_ you have _his_ face and not be _him_?” He demanded, shaking.

 

“Danny Holt,” the fake-Q rasped out, tears running down his face. “And I have no idea who your ‘he’ is.” He dug is nails in James’ arm, drawing blood. “Let me go! Let us go! We don’t know anything and we’re not doing anything wrong,” he seethed out, eyes full of rage and hatred and fear, so much fear.

 

“But you look like…” James trailed off and let go of the man, sitting up like a puppet tugged on his feet by an unseen master. Now that the world was done mocking his pain, he could go back to his mission.

 

He staggered out of the alley, Danny’s relieved sigh and kisses against 009’s face acting as sharp, poisoned knives against what little was left of his soul.

 

“Are you alright?” 009 was asking and how he wished that would have been him asking Q.

 

More kisses and murmurs, clothes rustling as they each made sure they were okay and James started to walk faster, getting lost in the blissfully unaware crowd of civilians, trying to block out everything.

 

He had a mission he needed to finish and maybe, afterwards, Q would…

                                                           

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are love.


End file.
